


farewell, i love you

by kornevable



Series: thread of our lives - sylvix week 2020 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Time Loop, spoilers for all routes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26654341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kornevable/pseuds/kornevable
Summary: “What’s that supposed to mean? How can anyone be too fucking strong?”“If you’re too strong, you leave me behind.”Felix keeps dying; Sylvain can't allow this to happen. /Day 5 of Sylvix week: promises
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: thread of our lives - sylvix week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933267
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	farewell, i love you

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone ordered some loops? I love loops.
> 
> Title from JIN's [Additional Memory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2QfH1JqtkY).

“I’m not leaving you.”

“I know.”

“Leaving you is the last thing I’d do. And if you’re the one who leaves, I’ll follow.”

The smile he sees, stretching his lips, isn’t a happy one; it’s flat, barely a twitch, not reaching his eyes and making his face glow with resignation.

“Of course you’d say that. You always do whatever you want.”

* * *

Sylvain dunks his entire head into the river and wishes he could wash away the bloodied memories from his mind as well.The freezing water does nothing to draw him out of his torpor—it keeps him stranded on a single thought he will never be able to discard, haunting him until the day he dies.

Two hands grab his shoulders and yank him backwards, forcing him to furiously blink to get the water out of his eyes. He shakes his head, sending more droplets all around him like he was a drowning dog.

“Damn it, Sylvain, stop that!” Felix growls.

Sylvain grins and flicks more water in Felix’s face. Felix punches his arm in retaliation.

“Ow, you’re no fun, Felix,” Sylvain whines.

“What do you think you were doing? Are you trying to freeze your brain?”

Felix is frowning, arms crossed over his chest, radiating tension and unease. He has been nothing but on edge for the past weeks. It’s surprising he’s still able to hold a conversation with anyone, and without spitting vitriol and fire, at that—Sylvain is well aware of how Felix can get at this stage of the war.

“Well, if I freeze my brain I can’t have dilemmas over what I want to eat for dinner, and I think it’s very sad,” Sylvain says, tone light. “Oh wait, that means I’ll be able to think with my dick.”

Felix keeps glaring at him. He’s more stubborn, this time. It wasn’t so difficult to make him drop a subject, before. Sylvain rubs his neck, unable to meet Felix’s eyes (what kind of irony is this?).

“We’re marching on Tailtean Plains tomorrow, so I was cooling off,” he admits.

The weather has been terrible for the past month; even for Faerghus, the Great Tree Moon is considered a rather pleasant moon, with rays of sunshine lasting longer than a few hours a day. But this year, rain has been pouring, slowing their advance through the mud and the fog, grating on everyone’s nerves and chipping at their patience. Felix has been snappish and frustrated, not concealing his desire of looking forward to reaching their destination, and put the war behind them.

Sylvain knows this won’t end well. They haven’t engaged in battle yet, but he knows that it’s doomed.

Felix stays quiet for a moment, then lets out a shaky exhale. “You need to focus.”

Sylvain bursts out laughing, startling Felix and those who are bathing next to him.

“Don’t worry, there’s no way I’ll lose focus,” he says. “I can’t lose focus, not now.”

Sylvain directs a smile at Felix; he doesn’t know what he looks like, but Felix is staring at him, eyes wide and shining like he’s facing a complex problem that he can’t solve by swinging his sword at it, like he’s had the solution swept from under his feet at the last moment, and he can’t bring himself to think of another one. Sylvain tries his best to avoid putting this kind of expression on Felix’s face, so he aims at a bigger grin, but Felix stands up abruptly, and retreats to camp.

“Don’t lose yourself.” Sylvain thinks he hears as he watches Felix’s back getting farther and farther away.

The Tailtean Plains are drowning in a heavy rain that makes every step a struggle. They can’t see farther than two meters ahead; the sound of the rain blending with those of the weapons clashing, the soldiers yelling and the beasts howling create a cacophony ringing in Sylvain’s ears wherever he goes. Fighting in these conditions is pulling at his thin willpower to stay sane.

He spurs on his horse and doesn’t look anyone in the eye when he brandishes the Lance of Ruin to kill the Kingdom soldiers, like he was born for it. He paints the ground in red and cuts a path through those people he was once supposed to fight alongside with—he vaguely remembers his orders but he’s stopped listening to orders a long time ago.

Felix is like death itself on the battlefield. He’s a whirlwind of ferocity and grace, striking true with every thrust and never leaving an enemy alive in his quest for victory. He always looks forward.

Sylvain has the tendency to look everywhere except forward. That doesn’t mean he’s able to be on time.

He sees the archer notching an arrow at Felix’s back. Even on horseback, Sylvain won’t be able to reach him fast enough to protect him. His voice won’t carry far enough, and even if it does, it will be too late.

“Felix—!”

Felix’s body goes down just as Sylvain sees, on the other side, Dimitri approaching. Felix’s blood flows in-between the cracks of the earth. The rain on the Tailtean Plains drowns their screams and their blood and their tears.

Sylvain barks out a laugh, slapping a gloved hand on his forehead and dragging it down his face. Dimitri’s face is pinched, his gaze traveling from Sylvain to Felix, and from Felix to Sylvain. Ever so slowly, he readies his lance.

“There’s no fucking point,” Sylvain says, and the world goes white.

* * *

“Didn’t we establish that if you’re not strong enough, we can’t die together?”

“But Felix, you’re the one who’s too strong.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? How can anyone be too fucking strong?”

“If you’re too strong, you leave me behind.”

* * *

This Felix is different. His words are still coated with poison and his swordsmanship is still impeccable, but he’s less subtle about his intentions. He might kiss Sylvain like he represents his entire world, he might whisper sweet nothings into his ear, and he might tell him he will protect him, Sylvain knows that someone else will always be his priority.

This Felix will drop his sword if he thinks this is the only solution he’s left with. He will run and cross the whole battlefield to fulfill his duty, to make sure he isn’t fighting in vain. This Felix is more transparent about his desire to change Faerghus, and to change Faerghus he needs to ensure that the right person sits on the throne.

Sylvain, in this universe, will always be second to Dimitri.

Gronder Field burns, swallowing corpses and ideals alike. Sylvain knew something would go wrong; he always knows when something will go wrong, but he never knows when something will go right. He watches as Felix moves towards Dimitri, like a flower drawn to its source of light, to fight alongside him.

This Felix forfeits his life and dies in Dimitri’s arms, because he believed in Dimitri.

Sylvain sinks on the ground, his forehead hitting the hard soil and smearing blood all over it, and he closes his mind.

* * *

“Don’t you think that sometimes we shouldn’t cling onto our principles so fiercely? It’s said that many people lose themselves to their ideals.”

“If they’re dumb enough to get killed because of stupid ideals, it’s their problem.”

“What if that ideal is growing old and dying in a bed with someone you love?”

“Is it Sylvain code for having sex?”

* * *

The first time Sylvain came face to face with Felix on the battlefield, on opposite sides of the war, he couldn’t bring himself to fight him.

Felix still died first.

* * *

Sylvain is letting his mouth devour Felix, pressing on his lips, on his jaw, going down on his collarbones then on his torso. He’s not stopping and he’s wishing this moment never ends, so that he will continue having Felix in his arms and not be forced to let him go. His hands are wandering and touching, caressing the skin of his back and of his thighs. The desperate and urgent nature of his moves don’t bleed into rough handling, though; Sylvain is careful and is treating Felix’s body like it is his personal sanctuary.

“Are you okay, Sylvain?”

Sylvain fears his words would transform into sobs if he speaks up. So he kisses Felix, relentlessly, absorbing everything from his scent to the curve of his mouth and the sounds his throat makes. He takes. He takes and takes, and stores it all into a corner of his mind, for him to assemble later as if he is piecing together the different parts of something that he can’t quite remember.

Felix responds to his kisses and touches, and stops asking questions. He’s become patient and less prone to lashing out—Sylvain knows this won’t help avoiding the inevitable threat looming over them.

Sylvain gets carried away by his worries and the comforting kindness he finds in Felix, and ends up being the weaker one, once again. He’s weak so he gets injured in his endeavor to protect Felix, because he’s not capable of achieving anything if it doesn’t involve his body, and Felix gets killed soon after when he’s protecting _him_.

* * *

“I...”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“The future you envision... Am I included in it?”

“What kind of question is that? As if I could get rid of you.”

“It’s a promise, then? Living together, and dying together?”

“...It’s a promise.”

* * *

Felix follows Ingrid to join Claude’s class. Sylvain follows Felix.

Dimitri dies. No matter how tight Sylvain is holding Felix, no matter how pathetic he becomes as the days pass, he sees the way Felix is slipping away, drifting aimlessly without a purpose anchoring him to somewhere peaceful. Sylvain watches him slip between his fingers and disappear, going back on his word (he always goes back on his word, but he doesn’t remember, he never remembers), and leaves Sylvain behind.

All he can do is attach a memory of Felix on a sword he didn’t want.

* * *

When Felix gets deployed at Arianrhod, Sylvain begs Ingrid to switch place with him. She’s not pleased and neither is Dimitri, but they relent and tell him he has to be careful. Sylvain doesn’t answer them.

Their positions don’t allow them to fight side by side, so Sylvain spends their entire trip to the fortress telling Felix he loves him.

“You make it sound like we’re going to die.”

“I just felt the need to tell you I love you,” Sylvain says with a smile.

Felix snorts, but the curl of his lips is gentle and vulnerable, and he doesn’t resist when Sylvain pulls him into an all-consuming kiss. Sylvain feels himself breaking.

When he doesn’t see Felix or Rodrigue coming to back him up during the siege, Sylvain doesn’t bother ending the fight, exhaustion seeped into his bones, and he shatters the world.

* * *

“Do you think happiness is possible for people like us?”

“Everyone decides for themselves whether they can be happy or not.”

“Ah, so are you happy?”

“Maybe not now, but I’ll be eventually, probably. When the war ends.”

“Well then, we’d better survive so that you can find your happiness.”

“Yours, too. It’s a two-way street.”

* * *

Sylvain doesn’t believe in fate. He doesn’t believe in anything anymore. He’s a decaying soul inhabiting a body that won’t ever see the end of the war and the reconstruction of the world. Every fiber of his being has been pulled taut, and today is the day he snaps.

The Tailtean Plains wail and shriek. There is no energy left in Sylvain to continue this senseless battle with himself.

The glint in Felix’s eyes means he won’t back down. Good. Sylvain brandishes the Lance of Ruin and charges at Felix, summoning the power of his crest just as Felix makes his flash. The light of their crest is blinding and screeching. It’s wrong, so wrong, but Sylvain is tired.

Felix’s sword goes through the plates of his armor like ash, and Sylvain brings down his lance to pierce Felix’s flesh. Their gazes travel to look at each other, and Sylvain sees an entire world of possibilities in these molten eyes, but none of them will grant them what they are wishing for.

“It’s laughable, isn’t it...?”

Felix smiles weakly, and closes his eyes. Sylvain exhales slowly, finally feeling he isn’t racing against time anymore. It leaves him unsatisfied and empty, like he’s forgetting something essential, but he is free. His mind drifts elsewhere, and slams the door shut.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Felix wakes up in yet another body, a new promise brushing his lips; but these promises never amount to anything, because he’s forced to eventually break them.

**Author's Note:**

> the tragedy of loving and saving each other etc etc
> 
> / come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kornetable)!


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